Archives
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Recent Posts
- W.D.Wash.: DNA warrant isssued with PC not quashed before execution
- S.D.Ohio: Defense of denial of possession in drug case meant no assertion of standing to challenge the search, so no IAC
- N.D.Okla.: Anticipatory tracking warrant for money counter is without authority and nexus is speculative even if not
- CA9: Supervised release condition of financial disclosure permitted under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and didn’t violate 4A
- N.D.Ohio: Refusing discovery on 4A grounds in forfeiture case results in no standing
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16) (discontinued 2018)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-24,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 425,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 45,000 posts since 2003 (26,730+ on WordPress as of 12/31/23) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
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Section 1983 Blog -
"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't."
—Me -
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
–Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) -
“I am still learning.”
—Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)). -
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud -
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848) -
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984). -
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."
—Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). -
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987). -
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting). -
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
—Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765) -
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment."
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) -
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). -
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) -
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) -
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) -
“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989) -
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards -
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew "The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)
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Monthly Archives: October 2015
Microsoft: Body-worn camera policy guide: Key guidance for managing body-worn camera video
Microsoft: Body-worn camera policy guide: Key guidance for managing body-worn camera video: Thinking of adopting body worn cameras? Here’s where to begin. Body worn cameras are the latest in technology enabling better policing. Departments across the United States and the … Continue reading
Wired: Turns Out Police Stingray Spy Tools Can Indeed Record Calls
Wired: Turns Out Police Stingray Spy Tools Can Indeed Record Calls by Kim Zetter: The federal government has been fighting hard for years to hide details about its use of so-called stingray surveillance technology from the public. The surveillance devices … Continue reading
NPR: Stealth Mode? Built-in Monitor? Not All Body Cameras Are Created Equal
NPR: Stealth Mode? Built-in Monitor? Not All Body Cameras Are Created Equal by Martin Kaste: Amid the recent pressure on police to wear body cameras, one thing is often overlooked: Not all cameras are created equal. In fact, cameras vary … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: With arrest in driveway on a fake drug deal, govt fails to show entry into garage was inevitable; cash suppressed
Defendant was handcuffed and questioned in his driveway about a CI’s planned transaction with him that the government controlled. He was handcuffed in his driveway and 10 officers were there. The court finds his statements about the money in his … Continue reading
KY: No standing in GPS placed in a borrowed car
Defendant and others were suspects as serial robbers, and the police placed GPS devices on two cars in 2008. On defendant’s, he was not the owner and he just borrowed it. Placing the GPS in the first place was not … Continue reading
CA8: Air filter could be searched in inventory
Defendant argued that the search of the air filter container was excessive for an inventory because it was not an area where things were normally stored. The policy explicitly provided for search of that area, and the court has previously … Continue reading
DC: Custody for Miranda and Fifth Amendment purposes may be different than custody for Fourth Amendment purposes
Custody for Miranda and Fifth Amendment purposes may be different than custody for Fourth Amendment purposes. Morton v. United States, 2015 D.C. App. LEXIS 516 (Oct. 29, 2015):
M.D.Pa.: Even though the officer had the PC for weeks, he was not required to get an arrest warrant
A warrantless arrest on probable cause is reasonable. Even though the officer had the PC for weeks, he was not required to get an arrest warrant. United States v. Kellam, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146596 (M.D.Pa. Oct. 29, 2015):
WaPo: FBI spy planes used thermal imaging tech in flights over Baltimore after Freddie Gray unrest
WaPo: FBI spy planes used thermal imaging tech in flights over Baltimore after Freddie Gray unrest by Andrea Peterson: In days after Baltimore burned with unrest over Freddie Gray’s death in police custody, two FBI surveillance planes circled low above … Continue reading
LA1: Protective sweep of outdoor grill invalid when def arrested 20′ away
Defendant saw the narcs pull up and he walked toward them and was arrested in the street. Nobody else was in his yard. A protective sweep lifting the top of his barbecue grill when he was more than 20′ away … Continue reading
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy: Fourth Circuit grants rehearing, eliminates split, on cell-site surveillance
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy: Fourth Circuit grants rehearing, eliminates split, on cell-site surveillance by Orin Kerr: If you’ve been waiting for the Supreme Court to decide whether the Fourth Amendment applies to government collection of cell-site records, you will probably … Continue reading
AR: When two plan a homicide, it’s reasonable to infer their cell phones have evidence of communications related to the crime, so nexus shown
Where two men were alleged to have planned a homicide, it was reasonable to infer that the cell phone of one of them would have calls between the two planning and executing the murder. Therefore, the affidavit reasonably showed a … Continue reading
VA: GPS device could be removed and reinstalled under same warrant
The GPS tracking warrant in this case was good for 30 days, and it was installed the day after issuance. When officers learned the car was going in for service, they recovered it so it would not be detected, then … Continue reading
MA: Inventory proved to be pretext for investigative search; suppressed
The DEA directed the state officer to stop defendant for a traffic offense to find an excuse for a vehicle impoundment and inventory. Here, it was failure to signal, and the officer testified he wouldn’t have stopped somebody for that. … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Collective knowledge doctrine applies between FBI and state officers
“The collective knowledge doctrine, however, is not limited to cases where a superior officer commands another officer. Rather, the doctrine properly may be applied in cases where information is relayed between different law enforcement departments, even when the agency possessing … Continue reading
CA6: SW for person by alias and description was valid when he was under surveillance from issuance to execution
Warrants are usually directed at places and things not people, but here was a search warrant directed at defendant by his known alias and description. From the time it was issued until it was executed, defendant was under surveillance. It … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Wayne A. Logan, Cutting Cops Too Much Slack
Wayne A. Logan, Cutting Cops Too Much Slack, 104 Georgetown L.J. 87 (2015): Police officers can make mistakes, which, for better or worse, the U.S. Supreme Court has often seen fit to forgive. Police, for instance, can make mistakes of … Continue reading
CO: Cell phone SW for indicia of ownership did not permit search of every folder in the phone
A cell phone search warrant for indicia of ownership did not permit search of every folder in the phone; that would be a general warrant. People v. Herrera, 2015 CO 60, 2015 Colo. LEXIS 1011 (Oct. 26, 2015). Syllabus by … Continue reading